Divine Chu’s character traits

One careless remark made Steven Chu the target of public criticism

September 28, 2009

Chinese-American Steven Chu is the winner of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics. That should be the peak of his professional and academic career, but it is not the peak of his career. Earlier this year, Steven Chu was appointed by President Obama to serve as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy. That was another peak of Steven Chu's career. In today's era, even in the United States, officials are more powerful and influential. The official position of the dignified Minister of Energy certainly exceeds the reputation of a Nobel Prize winner. Obama is attracted to Steven Chu, probably because they share the same views on green energy. Steven Chu's advocacy of green energy has undoubtedly provided Obama with weapons to fight global warming. At the same time, Obama also wants to show that he cares for Chinese Americans as much as the Bushes.

In the U.S. government structure, there is a big difference in power between ministers. The Department of Energy is not a small department, but it is not as good as the first-class departments like the State Department and the Treasury Department. The Secretary of State and the Secretary of the Treasury have His name often appears in media headlines. At the peak economic strategic dialogue between the United States and China, Hillary Clinton and Geithner were the main force in the US dialogue. The name of the Secretary of Energy rarely appears in media headlines. But in the past two days, Steven Chu's name appeared on the headline news: The famous American comprehensive news website "RJ Report" published such a headline news, "The Secretary of Energy scolds Americans for being like children and being ignorant." The headline link A "Wall Street Journal" blog news reported that at an energy conference, Steven Chu said that Americans are like ten-year-old children when it comes to energy issues.

Of course, Minister Zhu is not saying that Americans do not understand what energy is. What he is saying is that ordinary Americans do not understand how to change their behavior to reduce tail gas emissions. After Minister Zhu’s speech, the U.S. Department of Energy immediately issued a statement, saying that the secretary was not calling the American public ten-year-old children. His original intention was to teach American children to save energy, and it also needed to be done on a larger scale. Help the public understand that clean energy is critical to America's ability to compete in the global economy. Why would the U.S. Department of Energy make such a statement? Of course, it was Minister Zhu’s speech that compared the American public to ignorant children that caused public outrage. There were thousands of comments on the blog news on the Wall Street Journal website alone, many of which expressed their disapproval of Zhu’s lessons. No small amount of anger. Obviously, the Department of Energy’s statements are getting darker and darker, treating the American public more like children. Why is it that Minister Zhu advocates educating children to save energy? He is clearly comparing adult Americans to ignorant children!

I wonder if Minister Zhu reads those comments. If he reads those comments carefully, he should know that his speech that underestimates the public’s IQ and knowledge not only reflects his nerdy attitude as a scientist. , and in today's special political environment, the idea of ??improving public intelligence is indeed hitting the target. From this point of view, Minister Zhu Diwen was a little unjust. If he doesn't believe it, read this public comment: "Our government can't even balance its budget and is trying to control the temperature of the planet." (The commenter was referring to Secretary Steven Chu's attempt to combat global warming by reducing car exhaust. combat), "Finally there are smart people like Minister Steven Chu in the government, I have to admit that Nobel Prize winners must be smarter than me" (this is an obvious irony), "Why do we need these 'elites' to work in the government? ” (This is dissatisfaction with Obama’s appointment of a large number of professors and scholars as officials).

Since Obama took office, the U.S. government’s powers and jurisdiction have become wider and wider, from nationalizing banks and car companies to managing car emissions. More and more Americans feel that the government is interfering. their lives and restrict their freedom. For example, what kind of car should I drive, etc. In addition, the American public has always been disgusted with the condescension of elites. Steven Chu's statement of comparing Americans to children violates this taboo. He may be able to say this to students in college classrooms and laboratories, but not to the American public, because students cannot elect teachers, but officials are mandated by voters. At present, there is growing rebellion against Obama's big government policies and elite governance across the United States. Steven Chu's remarks comparing the U.S. government to a "parent" and treating the public as "children" have become a target of attacks by the American public. .

Devon Chu, the Chinese-American Energy Secretary in the United States, was forced to resign due to corporate bankruptcy

According to the US "World Journal" report, Chu Chu, the first Chinese-American Energy Secretary in the history of the United States, is currently serving Facing a major test. Solyndra, an American clean energy company that received more than $500 million in federal loan guarantees, suddenly went bankrupt a few months ago, causing Steven Chu to face criticism. Amid the accusations urging him to step down and apologize, it is still difficult to say whether Steven Chu can escape unscathed.

On the 17th, Steven Chu attended the House of Representatives’ Investigation Subcommittee’s hearing on the collapse of Solyndra solar panel company, which was once used as a model for job creation by the Obama administration. Many *** and party members, including the chairman, pointed out on the spot that Steven Chu had clearly violated the law and asked Steven Chu whether he should step down to apologize and apologize to the American people.

What Steven Chu is questioning is mainly the legality of the credit and the political manipulation involved in concealing the company's financial status.

Solyndra's main investor, Oklahoma oil tycoon George Kaiser, is President Obama's financial backer. When Obama visited Solyndra, he was asked to use the company's products by the federal government. Said it would be considered.

Steven Chu insisted on his innocence on the 17th, saying that Solyndra's credit decision was not affected by the White House, and that the loan was inherently risky, with the original risk assessment being only 7.8%.

At the hearing, members of the Communist Party of China and the Communist Party of China pursued and attacked Steven Chu, believing that it was impossible for Steven Chu to be kept in the dark alone. Democratic congressmen tried their best to protect him, and the scene was full of gunpowder. The hearing lasted from 10 a.m. to about 2 p.m., and Chairman Cliff Sterans still had no intention of stopping. Democratic congressmen were dissatisfied with the fact that congressmen repeatedly asked the same questions during the hearing, saying that it would be better to let Steven Chu give a written reply in the future. Democratic congressmen advocated that the hearing should be ended, and Stearns wanted to vote. Later, the two sides compromised and the hearing ended before 4 p.m.

The Obama administration has released more than 100,000 pages of Solyndra-related information, mainly emails, while Democratic and Republican lawmakers continue to investigate.

Steven Chu still stated his ideals in Congress on the 17th. He said that he left Stanford University and became the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory under the U.S. Department of Energy, where he led research on how to use organisms to convert solar energy into energy.

Now it is not just Democrats and Republicans who are attacking Steven Chu. Dan Carol, "Obama's 2008 campaign research director", sent an email in February this year, already suggesting that Obama should remove him And other senior managers of the Department of Energy have been replaced, and they have to give up their jobs to keep their commander-in-chief.

Next year is an election year, and the atmosphere in Washington is becoming increasingly politically confrontational. The Republicans will not give up the opportunity to attack the Democrats. Whether Steven Chu, the only remaining Chinese-American minister in the Obama administration, can escape unscathed is also the focus of attention from all walks of life.

Diwen Chu: Ranging from academia to politics

“I will finally introduce today’s speaker. He showed outstanding scientific research talents during his postdoctoral period and later led AT&T Bell It was at that time that the laboratory's Quantum Electronics Department pioneered the method of cooling and capturing atoms with lasers, which earned him the Nobel Prize in 1997. He became a professor at Stanford University when he was less than 30 years old, and began to take charge of the United States in 2004. The oldest national laboratory in the Department of Natural Resources, under his leadership, the national laboratory has completed a series of far-reaching reports on environmental and energy issues.”

The applause has not ended yet. A capable man has stepped onto the podium. Facing scientists from all over the world, he smiled easily and said, "Thank you, host, for the introduction. It sounds awesome. But who are you talking about?" The audience immediately asked again. There was a round of applause and laughter.

This was Steven Chu’s opening remarks at the British Energy Conference in April this year. This Chinese who grew up in the United States went from a small town to a cutting-edge scientific research company, then to a prestigious university, and now he is about to enter the political arena under the spotlight of the world. The journey has not been without hardships, but he has always been so happy and energetic, as if he was free. Take a walk in the garden.

“My family is full of incredibly successful people”

Whenever he is asked about his family, Steven Chu always jokes that he comes from a “scientific family.” My grandparents studied abroad, and my parents graduated from higher education institutions in China and the United States and settled in the United States. < /p>

Before college, Steven Chu’s brother was the holder of records in various subjects in the school. The teachers always remembered his brother’s name and hoped that Steven Chu would perform equally well. However, Steven Chu was more than smart. But he is more casual. His parents don't interfere much with his studies, and he only studies what interests him. For example, he learned tennis by reading books, and even joined the school tennis team. He also taught himself pole vaulting using bamboo bought in a small store, and "quickly jumped two and a half meters easily."

At that time, Steven Chu’s favorite Christmas gifts were some complicated handmade models. He often piled up the living room with small pieces of wood and screws, until his mother’s bottom line of patience was broken after a few days.

Speaking of this free childhood, he said: "I like to do things with my hands. Only now do I know how those game days of building models with my own hands affected my later career. I can always vividly Imagining my molecular and physical models, spinning them around in my head."

In his senior year of high school, he was inspired to build a pendant to measure gravity. And 25 years later, he used Nobel Prize-winning technology to create the atomic fountain interferometer, which precisely optimized measurements for the same purpose.

Due to his lackluster grades, Steven Chu failed to enter the most prestigious university. Instead, he was admitted to the University of Rochester, but he was very content, "No one knows about my brother. I can finally be myself." "It was here that he met a good physics teacher. Steven Chu always said with gratitude: "This teacher makes each of our students feel that they are special and independent individuals, so that we can do our best to be ourselves. Like things.

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After eight years of doctoral and postdoctoral research at the University of California, Berkeley, as an outstanding graduate, Steven Chu obtained a teaching position at the school. However, the school with a long-term vision proposed that Steven Chu could Go out for a walk before taking office. This suits his mood and allows him to continue "hanging out". Who knows, this trip will last for thirty years.

"I just caught an atom"<. /p>

Bell Labs is a world-famous electronics and physics laboratory. The work performed here has won six Nobel Prizes. In 1978, Steven Chu, who had just arrived, was allowed to do free research for a while by the company. Any field - not even physics. He can chat with "wily" experts and curious "little boys", and cooperate with anyone who has an appetite.

Unlike a campus, where each staff member at Bell Labs can only hire at most one technician and one postdoc, the structure of this small research group makes communication and collaboration inevitable, he said: "We all have each other. They are so familiar that they know who drives which car and who works on the weekends. You can tell at a glance. "After the lecture, during lunch, at parties, and on the court, Steven Chu felt that he was always surrounded by the latest scientific and interesting things. Bell Labs was called "a paradise for scientific research" by Steven Chu, and life here was also Described as a "magical time"

The atoms that make up the world are flying at the speed of supersonic aircraft (approximately 4,000 kilometers per hour), so "grabbing atoms" is a unique phenomenon in the world of physics. It has been a long-standing dream, and some people who have experienced it have tried and failed. Zhu Steven called himself a young man who could be "poisoned" when he appeared at the right time. One day, a respected old man said to him: "If you can capture the atom, you can do it." How wonderful that would be. I failed, you try it. "Some calculations showed that this was really unfeasible. Zhu Diwen joked that he finally understood why the old man gave this problem to him...

Until one day, when the weather was freezing, Heavy snow had sealed the door of the laboratory, and Steven Chu sat calmly in the quiet laboratory, looking at the snowflakes flying outside the window, like a fairy tale world. He suddenly had an idea, why not freeze the atoms so that they could not move, and then grab them. It? He told his boss about his idea and preliminary calculation results, and the boss said: "If you want to do something crazy, then do it. However, just bring your people to do it, and you are not allowed to recruit anyone else..."

In this way, Zhu Steven quickly turned the calculations on the paper into experiments in his hands, and he put the vacuum The atoms in the room were frozen to near absolute zero, and six laser beams were used to chase the atoms from different directions - and the atoms fell into the trap. It is said that he ran to tell his boss: "Guess what?" I just grabbed an atom. The boss said: "Not bad." What are you going to do if I catch you? Steven Chu said: "I don't know either...but it's really good!" "Ten years later, the results of this experiment with little prospect at the time became the Nobel Prize in Physics, breaking the myth that the award only belongs to theoretical physics.

What’s interesting is that when Steven Chu called his mother, When informed of the award by phone, the mother said with a hint of anger: “This is great. But, dear son, when are you going to see me next time? ”

Entering the “new house” of science

It is easy for Steven Chu to become curious about new areas in the scientific world. He likens it to walking into a new house, looking left and right , everything he sees is new. After studying physics for more than 20 years, Zhu Diwen thought, since he has captured atoms, why not try to capture larger molecules, such as DNA, proteins, and polymers?

Zhu Diwen, who had no biology background at all, flipped through the biology book. It was a thick book with 1,500 pages. He only read 150 pages and couldn't read anything. . Then Steven Chu went to the biologists and chatted with them using his little knowledge of biology, telling them his guesses and interests. Most of the time, the answer he got was "Your idea is too baseless." Ah”, or “This has been done before. "Only rare occasions do others say to him: "Oh, this is the central issue now. "Zhu Diwen came back from studying and read biology textbooks and papers with feasible questions. Soon he could understand the cutting-edge literature of biology.

It seemed like a purposeless play at the beginning. Zhu Diwen led his students , grabbing the ends of a chain-like DNA molecule using light that grabs atoms. “Why not try to see how hard you can break it? "They found that they couldn't stop pulling it - the DNA molecule turned out to be so strong. "Why don't you try letting go again! "As a result, these biological laymen were the first to discover that the DNA molecule can shrink into a ball like a spring, and the way it shrinks is different each time. Under human manipulation, the state displayed by the molecule can be used to study Their properties. In this way, Steven Chu successfully extended his research tentacles into unfamiliar areas, and with the help of the physics technology he developed, a new world opened up in the biological world.

He once worked in his laboratory. Dr. Cui Bianxiao, who has been working for six years, lamented: "Dewen Chu has an extremely keen intuition about science. At the same time, he also gives the members of the group a lot of freedom and always encourages them to explore ideas that they think are interesting. ”

Diwen Chu’s emphasis on interdisciplinary cooperation is not limited to his own research.

After ten years at Stanford University, he and several professors took the lead in forming a project called Bio-X, which aims to make it easier for experts from physics, chemistry, biology, earth sciences, engineering and even law to cooperate. It continues to grow and develop to this day.

For the future of mankind

In 1966, Steven Chu had just graduated from high school. He appears in the graduates' memorial book with a serious appearance and a comment next to it - "Has a scientific mind". Now it seems that this sentence far underestimated what he could achieve.

In his autobiography after winning the Nobel Prize in 1997, Steven Chu wrote: "I left Berkeley that year and never returned, and I still feel guilty to this day. But I believe Berkeley is tolerant. "When he wrote this sentence, he probably did not expect that after establishing his "status in the world" of scientific research, he would say goodbye to his stable job at Stanford and return to the Berkeley campus after an absence of nearly thirty years.

In 2004, Steven Chu recommended himself to serve as the director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and concurrently as a professor of physics and molecular biology at the University of California, Berkeley. The National Laboratory is affiliated to the U.S. Department of Energy and is the oldest national research laboratory in the United States with more than 4,000 employees. Under his leadership, the laboratory has begun research on biofuels and solar energy technology in recent years. And Steven Chu himself is even more conscientious and has become one of the most famous environmental propagandists in the United States today. It is common to see him appearing in various forums in high spirits, with his shirt sleeves rolled up, chatting and laughing. As a scientist, using technology to solve energy problems is the most important theme in his speech; his humorous language, rich data, and logical argumentation are his greatest features.

Steven Chu said: "We always say 'wait until you are absolutely sure before you speak.' But when it comes to environmental issues, by the time you are sure, everything is a foregone conclusion. Now, most people would rather spend $1,000 Instead of spending the money to improve the energy efficiency of the kitchen, he said: "At the beginning, I was only interested in this issue as a citizen, but I gradually became more interested in it." How dangerous the consequences of climate change are. As a scientist, a responsible scientist, we must think about what we can do to change this situation."

Last year, Berkeley, California, including Steven Chu. Six of the university's Nobel laureates have called for "practical action" in the search for alternative and renewable energy sources. They dressed up, wore suits and leather shoes, and posed in various poses around a dead tree. One of them even climbed onto the branch of the tree. In the live video, the photographer looked through the camera and said to his Nobel Prize models: "Don't laugh, there's nothing funny." - This is the most intelligent and orthodox performance art photo in history. . (Title picture, can you identify Steven Chu?)

Chung’s efforts and enthusiasm for environmental issues have won the favor of newly elected US President Obama. Obama nominated him as the new Secretary of Energy to bring this scientist with no political experience among political veterans to help fulfill his promise - to make the United States more energy efficient and energy independent.

In response to this, 60-year-old Steven Chu said at the nomination ceremony: "Some people say that we must go all out to revive the economy; I hope that I can become a member of the presidential appointment team. We also believe that we must repair our economy and at the same time embark on a path of sustainable energy development." In an interview looking back on his own journey over the years, Steven Chu said that the road he has traveled has been like this. It is a "random walk". Having experienced a free childhood and perseverance in youth and middle age, today he says to future generations: “In life, you must do what you really want to do, fight with your passion, and never give up.